… These perennials grow to a height of 8 inches with full sun to partia shade and dry soil conditions. Blooms from May through August can be red, yellow, … and vivus, meaning “living,” because this perennial plant keeps its leaves in winter and is very resistant to difficult conditions of growth. The foliage varies from blue, bronze green, …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… This maple is native to China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia and far eastern Russia. It can grow to a height of 40 feet with a similar spread. Leaves can have 5-7 triangular lobes. They emerge …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… Why Care about Fungi? The Chicago area is host to more than a thousand species of mushrooms and mushroom like fungi—beneficial, … the forest. If you do collect in the wild, be aware of and follow rules for collecting at that site, e.g., collecting fungi is not allowed on any forest preserve property in the greater …
Type: Plant Info
… Yellow wild indigo is a 2- to 3-foot tall native perennial plant known for its small yellow, pea-like flowers that … May-June. The flowers are replaced by ornamental tan seedpods that make attractive additions to dried flower arrangements. The bluish green leaves are held on upright stems. Plants prefer …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… This plant is a type of willow tree that has stems that are bright green in the winter time, even when it has lost its leaves. The stems can be used to make baskets too! Green dicks purple osier willow can grow to about sixteen feet tall and about eight feet wide but this tree is usually coppiced (cut back …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… but they are so small or high up that we can’t appreciate their unique beauty until they drift to the ground. Small to midsize ornamental trees, however, offer bold, beautiful color at eye level. They play an important role in small landscapes, especially in urban sites where this is no room for a large tree. The individual flowers may be exceptionally small —like those of the …
Type: Plant Info
… moth that appears just for a day or two on the side of my house at this time of year? And is it harmful? A. It is probably a Cecropia moth seeking a mate. These moths are a quite distinctive dark reddish-brown, with silver lines and crescent shapes on their 5- to 6-inch wings. After mating and laying eggs, the females deposit eggs on future food sources … cherry or birch trees) for the developing caterpillars. The large caterpillars take all summer to achieve full size, then form cocoons on low shrubs and pupate over the winter, emerging as …
Type: Plant Info
… for their flowers which appear in late winter or early spring and are often the first flowers to appear in the Chicago garden. Flower Girl hellebore grows into a low mound about eighteen inches high and 2 feet wide. The foliage is medium green and is evergreen throughout the winter except in extremely cold locations. Flower … pink edging. Hellebores prefer cool moist soils but are very adaptable requiring only that the site be well-drained. Typically they are planted in woodland settings under deciduous trees where …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… Crown-of-thorns ( Euphorbia milii var. splendens ) is a slow-growing plant with a rambling growth habit. Individual plants can grow to 5 feet by 3 feet on this Madagascar native that may be extinct in the wild. Its 5- to 6-sided fleshy, thorny stems are adorned with short, oblong leaves that are slightly larger …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… Mexican petunia is a bushy, semi-woody tender perennial that bears no relationship to the petunias we know except … for a day, but bloom is non-stop from May through the heat of summer until frost. It’s native to South American, the Caribbean, and Mexico where it’s truly evergreen. It’s often found wild …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
